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Thanks Carson. I deleted all my EZA/isnare/squidoo and closed the accounts. All the spam sites had taken the content published at EZA so I gathered all of them using GWT and majesticseo. After checking all of the backlinks I ended up disavowing 550 domains. As you say, there were some good links too, and only a handful of pages that the articles linked to, so my next step is to stop them redirecting. I've also contacted all the good linkers and they are updating to the .org too. We're getting there  Fingers crossed.. just goes to show that even something as justifiable as articles can bite you.

Hi James, I don't think removing unsuitable products would be considered negative. Do each of these product pages have unique content? Do they rank? I would guess that a phased and gradual approach would be the right way to do it. Mash

Aside from seo as a benefit, we get some pretty decent traffic from our article directory sites. It's not the best but is considered another reason we submit to article directories.